So, I was actually going to post something a week or so ago to inquire when July Brides were sending out their invites, but someone beet me to it. The post was super helpful and was happy to feel like my time frame seemed to be right on target with what others were doing. I am a July 27th bride by the way. SO I have been working on an insert of directions(as I have a decent amount of out of town guests). I also wanted to put a reminder on the paper of our room block options. We sent a save the date our around the year mark that included a website with this information already. It was today I realized I may have run into a little snag on my original time frame. We are getting married in a popular tourist area (part of the reason we felt a STD was a must for our wedding). As a result, the wedding block contracts are pretty particular! One of the hotels had a 6 week out cut off(which was standard for just about every hotel we looked into) and the other (which is what I would call the affordable option) had an 8 week cut off. This puts the affordable hotel cut off at MAY 24th which is what caused my concern. The affordable hotel did say that as long as they had rooms available and the guest calling mentioned it was for our wedding they would honor the rate. However, they could not hold rooms not guaranteed after that date mentioned above bc July is their busiest month. So as we were anticipating sending our invites out around the 24th/end of May, I am not sure what I should do. Just about everyone that I can think of did receive a STD, giving them almost 10 months of an opportunity to reserve their room(by the time of the cut off that is). I presented the deadline very clearly on our accommodations page. And have passed along the word of how critical it is to reserve ASAP.
So, my questions….If I wanted to put a reminder of the hotels on the directions page, do I include cut off dates? Do I send the invites out earlier, so they would receive them in enough time to still meet the cut off? If so, how much earlier?
Do I eliminate the date deadlines off both hotel options, just leave one? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! On a side note – my fiancés feeling is send out as planned. He said we have made it very clear to everyone, that this is a popular area and time of year so it is critical to reserve your rooms ASAP. If people opted to not listen to this advice, there isn’t much we can do.
Looking forward to hearing all of your helpful advice!